Check out the best stats from the pursuit of the 2022-23 FedExCup

After 47 official events and more than 1.3 million strokes, the pursuit of the FedExCup concluded this past Sunday in Georgia with Viktor Hovland lifting the freshly engraved trophy.

Record purses and performances have dotted the 2022-23 schedule. Two TOUR winners, Wyndham Clark and Brian Harman, ascended to the status of “major champion.” Meanwhile, multiple superstars engineered on-course performances not seen in decades, with victories and statistical displays.

A closer look at Scottie Scheffler’s stellar stats

It’s not hyperbolic to say that Scottie Scheffler has had one of the more remarkable statistical seasons to date in PGA TOUR history. Scheffler finished the TOUR Championship with an adjusted scoring average of 68.63, the seventh lowest in the history of the TOUR. It’s the best by anyone not named Tiger Woods, as he has the top-six spots on the all-time list (1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2007, 2009). Scheffler made bogey or worse on just 10.73% of his holes played for the season, the first time a player has been below 11% since Woods in 2002 (10.29%).

Strokes-gained metrics have been captured and measured for 20 seasons on the PGA TOUR. During that time span, Scheffler’s current Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green season average of 2.62 per round is the second-best of any player, trailing only Woods’ mark of 2.98 in 2006. Scheffler leads the TOUR in both SG: Off-the-Tee and SG: Approach, and he’s on track to become the first player to finish a season on top of both categories. Scheffler also leads the TOUR in greens in regulation for the second consecutive season, and he’ll become the first player to do that since John Senden in 2009 and 2010.

Scheffler’s crowning achievement this season, though, came in March at TPC Sawgrass when he won THE PLAYERS Championship. Having won the 2022 Masters, Scheffler became just the third man to hold both THE PLAYERS and Masters titles simultaneously, joining Woods and Jack Nicklaus. Scheffler also became the first PLAYERS champion to lead the field that week in both driving distance and greens in regulation, as well.

The win was Scheffler’s sixth on the PGA TOUR, just 392 days after he picked up his first TOUR title on Super Bowl Sunday at TPC Scottsdale in 2022 (WM Phoenix Open). That gap between career wins one and six was the fourth shortest of the last 60 years, behind only Woods (273), Nicklaus (322) and David Duval (322). Scheffler hasn’t added another win to that total this season, but he’s consistently contended throughout the year. His 17 top-10 finishes are the most in a single PGA TOUR season since Vijay Singh had 18 back in 2005.

Approach improvements fuel Jon Rahm

Through the first few months of 2023, nobody played better golf than Jon Rahm. At the Sentry Tournament of Champions in January, Rahm authored the biggest come-from-behind victory of the season to date, winning from seven shots back entering the final round. When he picked up his third win of the season at The Genesis Invitational, it was the earliest in a calendar year a player had won three times since Johnny Miller in 1975.

Rahm took his scorching-hot game to Augusta National in April, where he became the first European player in history with victories at both the U.S. Open and the Masters. Rahm hit 85 percent of his fairways and 72 percent of his greens in regulation for the week, benchmarks not dually reached by a Masters champion since Ben Crenshaw in 1995. Rahm won despite making double bogey on the opening hole of the tournament, becoming the first to do that the week of a Masters victory since Sam Snead in 1952.

Rahm’s biggest strides statistically in 2023 show in his iron play: Rahm vaulted up the board in SG: Approach this season, going from 38th to fourth. Rahm was especially elite on approach shots from 150 to 200 yards away, ranking third on the PGA TOUR in average proximity to the hole from that range. Rahm’s average proximity on approach shots from the fairway, 150 to 200 yards out, was 27 feet, 5 inches – a full 4 feet better than the current TOUR average.

Rory keeps record streak alive

Fighting a bad back at East Lake, Rory McIlroy saw his streak of 30 consecutive rounds of par or better on the PGA TOUR snapped in the third round of the TOUR Championship. He did, however, keep another impressive streak going: 10 consecutive top-10 finishes dating back to the PGA Championship in May. McIlroy is the first player to finish his PGA TOUR season with a streak of 10 or more top-10 finishes since Tom Kite did it back in 1981. McIlroy also is tracking to break the PGA TOUR single-season driving distance record, averaging 326.3 yards on measured tee shots in 2022-23. In a season where the TOUR average off the tee currently sits at 299.9 yards, McIlroy has managed to average 26.4 more with his driver.

Despite that, McIlroy is in a pantheon of active players who are almost exclusively judged on what they do in the biggest championships in the game. He completed his ninth consecutive full major championship season since his last major victory, the 2014 PGA. At The Open, he recorded his 20th top-10 result since that win. Since the first Masters in 1934, McIlroy is the only player with 20 or more top-10 finishes – none of them victories – in a nine-year stretch of majors.

The year of the comeback

This season has also been marked by several resurgent performances to date. One highlight of the late summer was Lucas Glover’s putter switch and the incredible results that came along with it. After more than 500 career starts on TOUR, ’22-23 marked the first multiple-win season of Glover’s long career – and he picked them up in consecutive weeks at the Wyndham Championship and FedEx St. Jude Championship. At age 43, Glover becames the oldest player to win back-to-back events on the PGA TOUR since Vijay Singh in 2008.

In May, former world No. 1 Jason Day got back in the winner’s circle when he won the AT&T Byron Nelson by a stroke over Si Woo Kim and Austin Eckroat. It was Day’s first win in more than five years – 1,834 days to be specific.

Perhaps no player enjoyed a more comprehensive comeback season than Rickie Fowler, who not only won the Rocket Mortgage Classic, but also looked like his old statistical self in 2023. After ranking 150th or worse in each of the previous two seasons in SG: Approach, Fowler fixed what was ailing him this year, finishing tied for sixth in that metric this year. Fowler made gigantic strides in SG: Total (from 133rd to 11th), birdie average (162nd to 12th) and scoring (111th to 9th).

Viktor Hovland displays FedExCup dominance

How does winning $21.5 million in an eight-day span sound? That’s what Viktor Hovland did the past two weeks, becoming the fourth FedExCup champion from Europe and third-youngest winner ever of the TOUR Championship.

Hovland showed off his explosiveness in his win at the BMW Championship, becoming the first player in nine years to win on the PGA TOUR with a final-round, back-nine score of 28 or lower. At the TOUR Championship, Hovland assembled one of the most complete statistical performances in the TOUR’s modern era. Hovland became the only player in the last 30 years to win an event while leading or co-leading that field in driving accuracy, greens in regulation and scrambling percentage.

At both Olympia Fields and East Lake, Hovland led all players in fairways hit. Hovland is the only player in the last 40 years to win back-to-back weeks on the PGA TOUR while leading each tournament in driving accuracy.

Peak rounds and performances

Fowler and Xander Schauffele each made history in Los Angeles at the opening round of this year’s U.S. Open, carding the first rounds of 62 in the history of the championship. By the Strokes Gained: Total stat, those are also the two best single round performances of the season, beating the field scoring average by 9.38 strokes apiece.

There have been two instances this season so far of a player hitting every fairway and every green in regulation in a round: Doug Ghim in the second round of the 3M Open and Henrik Norlander in Round 2 of the Rocket Mortgage Classic.

Fittingly, the top round in SG: Tee-to-Green to date this season goes to Scheffler, who picked up a ridiculous 9.45 shots on the competition in that category in the final round of the Memorial Tournament. The best SG: Putting performance to date this season belongs to S.Y. Noh, who gained more than 6.5 strokes on the greens in his opening round 60 at TPC Craig Ranch (AT&T Byron Nelson) in May.